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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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All things to all people? The provision of outreach by community mental health teams for older people in England
— findings from a national survey | | Author(s) | Sue Tucker, Mark Wilberforce, Christian Brand, Michele Abendstern, David Challis |
| Journal title | International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 29, no 5, May 2014 |
| Publisher | Wiley Blackwell, May 2014 |
| Pages | pp 489-496 |
| Source | www.orangejournal.org |
| Keywords | Mental health [elderly] ; Services ; Psychiatric treatment ; Coordination ; Community care ; England. |
| Annotation | The objective of this study was to identify the extent of outreach activity community mental health teams (CMHTs) for older people provide to mainstream services in light of the recommendations of the National Dementia Strategy. In particular, the study aimed to determine the range of settings in receipt of support; to specify the form of this activity; to identify the professionals involved; and to explore the factors associated with the provision of such support. A self-administered postal questionnaire was sent to all CMHTs in England. The reported arrangements were categorised and reviewed according to a taxonomy of outreach developed from the literature. 376, or 88% of the CMHTs responded to the questionnaire. Although nearly all teams undertook some outreach work, much of this was informal in nature. Nevertheless the vast majority of teams had some formal outreach arrangements in at least one mainstream setting. Just less than three-quarters provided support (most typically education) to care homes, approaching half centres to day centres, and over a third to primary care practices, social services teams, home care providers and general hospitals, respectively. Link workers were the favoured means of supporting general hospital staff. Community mental health nurses were most commonly involved in providing outreach, and larger teams were more likely than smaller teams to have formalised arrangements. A significant minority of teams expressed concerns about their capacity to provide effective services. These findings suggest that both more resources and more evidence will be needed to meet the National Dementia Strategy's aim of improving care for older people with mental health problems in mainstream settings. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-150529249 A |
| Classmark | D: I: LP: QAJ: PA: 82 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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